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Merzentwürfe CHAPTER THREE The Zweck of Schwitters’ Merzentwürfe As the term “Merz” in “Merzentwürfe” indicates, the selection and use of found objects in Schwitters’ architectural models would follow the same set of criteria as other works in his Merz oeuvre. In 1920, Schwitters explained in his article “Merz,” that this ‘criteria,’ or Zweck (aim, purpose) for materials in his Merz art, was determined by the “demands of the picture” he referred to as an ineffable invisible component to its “expression” that “can be only given to a particular structure, it cannot be translated.”1 In the previous chapter, the conception of Schwitters’ Merz art as a dichotomy of visible material and invisible content was compared to the anagogical perspective of materials in Christian art and architecture. However, as a model for the design of architecture, the Zweck for Schwitters’ Merzentürfe was no longer limited to the visible manifestation of an invisible content, but also how the assembly of “arbitrary materials” could anticipate “the representative material as well as constructive possibilities” of a planned construction.2 Compared to Haus Merz, that Spengemann proposed as a model for the making of all German architecture, Schwitters intended his Merzentwürfe to act as models for individual 1. Kurt Schwitters, “Merz,” Der Ararat 2, no. 1 (Munich, 1921): 3-9. Reproduced in Kurt Schwitters, Das literarische Werk, ed. Friedrich Lach, vol. 5 (Köln: DuMont, 1981), 74-83. See specifically 76. Hereafter references made to Lach’s compendium of Schwitters’ writings will be abbreviated as follows: LW, followed by a volume number and pagination. This English translation by Ralph Manheim in Ibid., 405. 2. “Der Merzentwurf für die Architektur verwendet jedes beliebige Material nach architektonischem Gefühl, um eine Wirkung zu erzielen, welche die Architektur nachbilden kann. Die Verwendung beliebiger Materialien bedeutet eine Bereicherung der Phantasie. Die Phantasie arbeitet in diesem Falle rhythmisch mit schon gegebenen Rhythmen. Das Transponieren des Entwurfs auf darstellendes Material sowie auf konstruktive Moeglichkeiten ist Sache der Durcharbeitung.” (The Merz design for architecture uses any material according to an architectural feeling, in order to obtain an effect, which architecture can copy/recreate. The use of arbitrary materials means an enriching of the imagination. The imagination works in this case rhythmically with rhythms already given. The transposition of the design onto representative material as well as constructive possibilities is a question of working through it.) Kurt Schwitters, “Schloss und Kathedrale mit Hofbrunnen,” Frühlicht 1, 3 (Spring, 1922): 87. Reproduced in: Bruno Taut, Frühlicht 1920-1922: eine Folge für die Verwirklichung des neuen Baugedankens (Berlin: Ullstein, 1963), 166-7. See specifically 166. (All translations by author unless otherwise noted). 79 structures. This chapter takes a closer look at the development of Schwitters’ Merz interpretation of found objects and how an anagogical perspective of materials supports his use of assemblage as a method for creating architectural models. The Fragment and the “Expression” of Merz Since the conception of his Merz art in 1918 until the making of Schloss und Kathedrale mit Hofbrunnen in 1922, Schwitters continued to explore his use of “all conceivable materials” for the construction of poems, two-dimensional collages, three-dimensional assemblages and architecture.3 While the objects assembled in Haus Merz mirrored the gears and cathedrals in Schwitters’ watercolor and stamp drawings from the same period, those he assembled in Schloss und Kathedrale mit Hofbrunnen were reminiscent of the non-objective forms in his Merz collages. In these works, fragments of natural and man-made objects were assembled into abstract compositions that left few identifiable words, sentences, or images, leading one to search for a secret meaning generated by the author.4 At an early stage in the development of his Merz oeuvre, Schwitters spoke of the materials he assembled in his Merz art and architecture as unified by an invisible content. In this way, Schwitters’ use of assemblage to create art and architecture coincided with the work of a number of German artists at the end of World War I who challenged the objective representation of reality by exploring the inner content of art through fragmentation and abstraction. Following the unification of Germany at the end of the nineteenth century, the increasing 3. Kurt Schwitters, “Die Merzmalerei,” Der Sturm 10, no. 4 (July 1919): 61. Reproduced in LW, vol. 5, 37. This is an excerpt from the English translation in John Elderfield, Kurt Schwitters (London: Thames and Hudson, 1985), 50-1. 4. See the collages Schwitters produced between 1919 and 1922 in the catalogue raisonné. Kurt Schwitters, Kurt Schwitters: catalogue raisonné, vol. 1 (Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2001), 184 – 521. 80 material desires of the German middle class and Kaiser Wilhelm’s efforts to control the seven seas led to the rapid industrialization of Germany.5 To generate nationalistic pride in the people responsible for creating the new German empire, the Kaiser sought to provide a renewed definition of the country by celebrating “German” culture.6 To do this, German conservatives close to the Kaiser shunned “Naturalism” and “Impressionism” as “foreign” and instead, promoted themes and styles derived from “German” sources including the German countryside, Romanticism and Idealism.7 In response, some German artists accused the early twentieth century industrialization of Germany and the dominance of visual realism in the arts of dehumanizing and objectifying the individual.8 To break from the artistic traditions that were associated with the Wilhelmine Empire, in 1905 a handful of German artists and architects formed the Die Brücke (The Bridge) group in Dresden and in 1911, Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) group in Munich. The aim of these two groups was to subordinate realism and to de- objectify art by returning to the individual experience of it.9 In his essay “Die absolute Malerei” 5. These events during the time of Germany’s unification are covered in: Eleanor L. Turk, The History of Germany (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999), 75-91 and David Blackbourn, History of Germany, 1780-1918 (Blackwell Publishers, 2002), 133-369. 6. The cultural motivations of the new German Empire during the years following its unification in 1871 are briefly summarized by Rose-Carol Washton Long and Geoffrey Perkins in: German Expressionism, Documents from the End of the Wilhelmine Empire to the Rise of National Socialism, ed. Rose-Carol Washton Long (New York: G. K. Hall; Toronto [etc.]: Maxwell Macmillan, 1993), xx-xxi; Geoffrey Perkins, Contemporary Theory of Expressionism (Bern; Frankfurt: Herbert Lang & Cie AG, 1974), 23-40. See specifically, 24-5; See also: Peter Paret, “Expressionism in Imperial Germany,” in German Expressionism: Art and Society, ed. Stephanie Barron and Wolf- Dieter Dube (Milano: Bompiani, 1997), 29-30 and Joan Weinstein, “Expressionism in War and Revolution,” in Ibid., 35-8. 7. This critique of “Naturalism” and “Impressionism” came from both the conservatives and the Expressionists. The motivation for the conservative’s critique is summarized by Geoffrey Perkins in: Perkins, 24-31 and Jay Clarke in Jay A. Clarke, “Neo-Idealism, Expressionism, and the Writing of Art History,” in Negotiating History: German Art and the Past, (Museum studies; vol. 28, no.1), ed. Jay A. Clarke (Chicago: The Art Institute, 2002), 24-37. 8. The early twentieth century critique of artistic conventions and rapid industrialization of Germany as promoting materialism and dehumanizing the individual is suggested by Rose-Carol Washton Long in: Long, German Expressionism, xxi-xxii and 77-8. 81 (The Absolute Painting) from 1911, Franz Marc summarized their challenge to art: Objects speak: objects possess will and form, why should we wish to interrupt them? We have nothing sensible to say to them. Haven’t we learned in the last thousand years that the more we confront objects with the reflection of their appearance, the more silent they become?10 Paul Flechter was the first to label the work of Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter artists as “Expressionism.”11 As Fletcher observed in his book Der Expressionismus from 1914, for Expressionist artists, “[t]he perfunctory satisfaction in making the picture conform to ‘reality’ is eliminated. Appearance is subordinated to the wish for expression . .”12 Over time, the art produced by Expressionist artists explored increasingly non-objective, fragmented and abstract forms using contrasting colors, dissonant chords, jagged brushstrokes and angular lines (fig. 79). In this way, Expressionist artists incorporated Nietzsche’s concept of creation through destruction.13 For Wassily Kandinsky, the Blaue Reiter’s chief exponent, the concept of destruction was a structuring principle for art based upon a harmony of “antitheses and contradictions.”14 In his seminal work, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Kandinsky argued how 9. Ibid. 10. “Die Dinge reden: in den Dingen ist Wille und Form, warum wollen wir dazwischen sprechen? Wir haben nichts Kluges ihnen zu sagen. Haben wir nicht die tausendjährige Erfahrung, dass die Dinge um so stummer werden, je deutlicher wir ihnen den optischen Spiegel ihrer Erscheinung vorhalten?” Franz Marc, “Die absolute Malerei,” in Briefe, Aufzeichnungen und Aphorismen, vol. 1 (Berlin: 1920), 124. 11. Based upon an evaluation
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